Inherent Vice: WSJ Article

Robin Landseadel robinlandseadel at comcast.net
Thu Jul 30 17:12:52 CDT 2009


Not so much a review as a general article on the responses of folks we  
all know:

Pynchon’s Drugstore Thriller
The reclusive novelist offers his most accessible—and commercial—work  
yet
By ALEXANDRA ALTER
Branding a Thomas Pynchon novel as “light reading” seems almost as far- 
fetched as one of the author’s hallucinatory plotlines involving time  
travel or a dog that reads Henry James.

Yet his latest offering, “Inherent Vice,” a noir-like novel set in Los  
Angeles at the end of the 1960s, is being billed as his most  
accessible novel to date. Landing three years after his 1,085-page  
epic “Against the Day,” the 384-page book has been labeled a “novella”  
by literary bloggers. The Creative Artists Agency in Los Angeles is  
handling film rights . None of Mr. Pynchon’s previous complex,  
postmodern novels have been adapted to the screen.

“Inherent Vice,” which comes out Aug. 4, has touched off a debate  
among fans and critics who are puzzled by Mr. Pynchon’s decision to  
take on the commercial format of a detective novel. Is “Inherent  
Vice,” as some Pynchon fans argue, a sophisticated parody, a classic  
Pynchon opus masquerading as a light read? Or is the reclusive  
novelist wholeheartedly embracing a genre that he has alluded to in  
“Gravity’s Rainbow” and other works?

Mr. Pynchon’s enigmatic persona has fueled the intrigue. Known for his  
sprawling, layered plots and intricate, brainteaser-like sentences,  
the 72-year-old author has shunned the limelight ever since he was  
catapulted to fame with the 1973 publication of “Gravity’s Rainbow.”  
Fans have made a sport of combing Mr. Pynchon’s books for clues about  
his tastes, literary influences and philosophy. There have been long  
dry spells. It took Mr. Pynchon 17 years after publishing “Gravity’s  
Rainbow” to come out with “Vineland,” seven years after that to  
complete “Mason & Dixon,” and nine years to publish “Against the Day.”

“Inherent Vice” follows a dope-smoking private detective named Larry  
“Doc” Sportello who sets out to solve the disappearance of a crooked  
billionaire land developer. The investigation leads the drug-addled  
detective to uncover a vast conspiracy involving the Los Angeles  
police department and a mysterious enterprise called “The Golden  
Fang,” an apparent smuggling vessel, drug cartel and a group of  
dentists.

“It’s a very entertaining book, but it will take re-reading for me to  
figure out whether there’s a lot more than that,” says John Krafft, an  
English professor at Miami University in Ohio and an editor of  
“Pynchon Notes,” a literary criticism journal devoted to Pynchon’s  
work. The book wouldn’t be out of place on “drugstore detective  
fiction racks,” he adds.

“Inherent Vice” has plenty of Pynchon-esque touches. It’s laced with  
racial and political paranoia, drug trips that blur hallucinations  
with reality, and 1960s pop culture references. It mixes heavy themes  
with stoner jokes and hosts a menagerie of colorful characters,  
including a hippie-hating cop who hoards frozen bananas in a coroner’s  
freezer.

Penguin Press has been playing up the book’s mystery-genre elements.  
Publicity material describes it as “part noir, part psychedelic romp.”

Professor Steven Weisenburger, a Pynchon scholar at Southern Methodist  
University in Dallas, dismisses the noir label as “an easy marketing  
tag” that belies the novel’s complexity.

Mr. Pynchon has declined interview requests for decades. His wife and  
agent, Melanie Jackson, didn’t respond to a request for comment.  
Penguin Press said Mr. Pynchon’s editor declined to comment.

Mr. Pynchon, though, has hardly been silent through the years. A pop  
culture fanatic, he has written book blurbs, reviews and articles for  
mainstream magazines. In 2004, he made guest appearances on “The  
Simpsons,” lending his voice to an animated character named Thomas  
Pynchon who, in a spoof on the author’s elusiveness, wore a paper bag  
over his head.

Tim Ware, a Web developer who built a Pynchon Wiki site with 1,000  
subscribers, says he’s heard a few complaints that the latest novel is  
“lightweight.” If some hardcore fans put off, the novel will likely  
draw new readers, he says.

“It will work perfectly as good beach reading,” he says.

Write to Alexandra Alter at alexandra.alter at wsj.com



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